Linwood Barclay - Far From True

I dropped my butt into a molded plastic chair, shifting the holstered gun at my side slightly so it wasn’t digging into me, and set Crystal’s book in my lap.

The title page, adorned with bold, two-inch-high letters, read: “Noises in the Night by Crystal Brighton.”

With a black marker, she’d covered over the entire page, just leaving the letters in white.

I flipped over to page one, careful not to rip the cover from the single staple in the upper left corner. The drawing featured a small girl in her bedroom, late at night, moonlight filtering through the curtained window, covers pulled up to her nose. The girl’s eyes were open, and she looked frightened.

The artwork was especially good. The kid, odd though she might be, had real talent.

I flipped over to the second page. Glancing through the coming pages, I saw that Crystal had used all kinds of paper indiscriminately. There were plenty of standard sheets of printer paper, but I guessed when she’d run short, she went to whatever was at hand. The back side of a pale green flyer for Cutter Landscaping, a pink sheet for a maid service. No doubt to her mother’s chagrin, she’d drawn all over the back side of a page that detailed school board enrollment projections.

I wondered how long Lucy might have been looking for that.

But it was clearly Crystal’s work that was more engaging. As I read on, the little girl, whose name, not surprisingly, was Crystal, slipped out from under the covers and went to the window. “Who is it?” she was saying. “Who’s out there? What do you want?”

A word bubble emerged from the darkness. “We are waiting for you.”

“Who?” the cartoon Crystal asked. “Who is it? What do you want?” The girl ran down the stairs and out the front door. “Is it you, Grandpa?” she asked. “Is it you?”

“Come into the woods,” the voice said. “Come into the woods and find out who it is.”

I glanced up for a second, noticed that the light had gone off on one of my washers. Still holding the book, I got out of my seat and went to investigate.

I opened the lid, saw my clothes sitting there in still water. I hit the start button again, but nothing happened. Maybe, I thought, the lid had to be closed for the machine to kick in again, so I dropped it down, hit the start button again.

Nothing.

“Sam?” I called out, glancing in the direction of the closed office door. “I think I got a bum washer here!”

I waited for the door to open, or for her to shout back from inside the office, but neither happened.

“Sam!” I shouted again, then thought maybe she was on the phone.

Decided to go check.

The Chalmers-Duncomb-Blackmore triangle was starting to gel in Barry Duckworth’s mind. The three couples had been friends. Georgina Blackmore had been in Adam Chalmers’s car when the screen came down. The six of them were in some kind of group-sex lifestyle thing.

There was that room .

And, according to Cal Weaver, there were sex videos, which someone had spirited out of that house in a hurry after word spread that Adam and Miriam had been killed in an accident.

Except Miriam hadn’t been killed.

Not then.

But she’d been murdered since her return home. And it happened after Duckworth had delivered the news that she was still alive to Duncomb and Blackmore — who were busy having a DVD viewing fest when he’d arrived.

You didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to think all those things were connected.

Duncomb, Duckworth concluded, was one tough son of a bitch. But the professor wasn’t. He was the weak link. Duckworth figured if he could get that man alone in a room, he’d talk. If he didn’t confess to Miriam Chalmers’s murder himself, he’d point Duckworth in the right direction.

Plus, there was the ex-wife Felicia Chalmers. Cal had seen her parked down the street from the Chalmers home shortly before Miriam showed up.

Duckworth wondered what one called a group of suspects. It was a gaggle for geese. Herd for cows. Pack for wolves.

Too bad the collective for crows was a murder . It would be so appropriate here for suspects. A murder of suspects. But since that was taken, maybe a guilt of suspects. A suspicion of suspects.

Maybe he had more important things to think about.

When he got to Felicia Chalmers’s building, he buzzed her apartment from the lobby. When there was no answer, he hit the button for the superintendent. A short, dark-haired man in a checked shirt with rolled-up sleeves finally showed up. Once Duckworth had shown his ID, the man answered his questions.

“I think she works today,” he told Duckworth. “This is Tuesday, right? She gets Sunday, Monday off. If you think she’s done something wrong, I don’t think so. She’s good people. She never causes me any trouble.”

“You know where she works?”

“Nissan.”

“What?”

“Nissan dealer,” he said. “She sells cars.”

Duckworth headed for Promise Falls Nissan. He parked in the visitors’ area and entered the showroom, where new cars sparkled under the artificial light. He was barely three steps into the showroom when he was pounced upon by a young, eager-looking man in a blue suit.

“How can I help you today?” he said, flashing teeth with a game-show smile.

“I’m looking for Felicia Chalmers,” he said.

“Are you sure? Because if you’re looking to get into something new, I can certainly help you.”

“No, it’s Ms. Chalmers I want to see.”

The man’s face fell. He turned to a woman sitting behind the reception desk and said, “Can you help this guy find Felicia?” Dejected, he wandered off. The woman picked up her phone and instantly her voice could be heard throughout the building. “Felicia? Come to reception.”

Seconds later, Felicia Chalmers approached. She’d learned to smile at the same place as the other salesperson.

“You were looking for me?” she said, extending a hand.

“Barry Duckworth,” he said. “I wonder if I could talk to you.”

“Of course! Follow me to my office.”

It was actually a desk surrounded on three sides by gray-fabric-covered partitions. Felicia slipped in behind the desk and motioned to Duckworth to take a chair.

“So you’re looking to get a new car?” she asked.

“I’m afraid not,” he said.

“Oh. Well, if you’re looking for something previously owned, I could have you talk to Gary, but lease payments are so reasonable, it’s not hard to get into something new and not have to worry about—”

“I’m with the Promise Falls police.” He flashed his ID for the second time in less than an hour. “I’m a detective.”

“Oh! I see. If this is about the car that went missing, you should really be talking to the manager.”

“A missing car?”

“It was weeks ago. Someone took an Xterra out for a test-drive and never came back. He showed us a driver’s license, but it turned out to be bogus.”

“That’s not why I’m here.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“I want to ask why you were parked out front of your ex-husband’s house last night.”

She couldn’t have looked any more stunned if he’d stood up and dropped his pants in front of her.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Last night. You were seen parked in your car near the home of Adam and Miriam Chalmers. I’d like to ask you about that.”

“Uh, I was just... sitting there is all.”

“Why?”

“Well... you know he died, right?”

“Yes, I do.”

“And I guess I was feeling — I don’t know — a little sad. Thinking about our life together. I was out driving and I went by the house where I once had a life with him. Is there a law against that? This has been kind of an upsetting time for me.”